New Semester, Giant Class

It’s that crazy time of the semester when your classes are pounding you and you’re stretched to the extreme, and then suddenly it’s time to register for next semester. “Hey!” you cry. “Let me survive THIS semester first!”

I usually know nothing of it until I start getting the e-mails that all say: Dear Professor, I haven’t had the prerequisites. Can I take your class anyway? Students are drawn to my classes because they have the word “Paleontology” in them. Ooh! Dinosaurs! I’m sure that’s what they’re thinking. They’re wrong, of course.

Nevertheless, it has been my general policy to allow students to take my classes without the prerequisites if they have the nerve to ask. The prerequisites are there mostly to keep the drooling dino-philes out of my classes, and to insure that the students in the class are capable of handing an upper-division course. (Don’t get me wrong. The dino-obsessed often morph into excellent paleontologists, and dinosaurs are cool. The drooling students, though, often need some time to mature before I want them in my class, that’s all!) I teach introductory geology and I know there are students in that class ill-prepared for my paleontology classes.

This year has been unique, now that the registration process is well underway. I’ve always had a few students come to me asking if my Earth and Environmental Science course could be used as an elective for their Biology degree. It requires a petition, but this has always been allowed: paleontology is very interdisciplinary and is as much biology as it is geology. This year, the Biology department officially listed my class as an elective for its majors.

The enrollment has jumped dramatically. I actually had to put a cap on the class when I realized that there were more students registered than ever before and the sophomores and freshmen hadn’t even registered yet. How much of that is because of the Biology Department’s endorsement of the course is not clear. It could also be that it’s been two years (because it has), so there’s a plethora of students that have been waiting. I have been teaching the introductory geology class for the past few years. Maybe these are students who enjoyed that class and want to have another one from me (the fools!). It’s also true that the university has been growing its student population, but I don’t think it’s by that much.

I’m not sure. But what I do know is that with the class as large as it is now, I’m going to have to re-vamp a lot of my exercises! They worked great for classes smaller than ten students, and did OK for a class of fifteen, but now I’ve got 24. Now it’s suddenly a formal lecture-style class and I’m regretting that I don’t have a laboratory section (which I’ve never had before).

So, it’s exciting that my class is suddenly so big. It’s popular, and maybe a gateway for students to join the EES degree program. But it’s horrifying too, because now I’ve got to re-think all my lectures and exercises. (And just for entertainment, I *might* change textbooks this year, too.)

I’ll let you know how it works out!